ADEREMI MEDUPIN

The Door of Conceptual Consensus as Point of Entry

For the avoidance of doubt and as a means to facilitating consensus, let us display the key concepts relevant to our theme, namely: economics and religion. There are varying definitions of economics-ranging from the sensible to the naïve, but we limit ourselves to just a few.

To the Department of Economics, University of Illinois, “Economics is concerned with the creation, consumption, and transfer of wealth. The study of economics encompasses the major areas of microeconomics, which explores how people and firms produce and consume goods and services, and macroeconomics, which explores mass economic progress and inter-country trade”. The offer from the American Economic Association incidentally appears rather vacuous, inadvertently limiting its scope to the micro level of engagement, as it states on its website, that; “Economics can be defined in a few different ways. It’s the study of scarcity, the study of how people use resources and respond to incentives, or the study of decision-making.

It often involves topics like wealth and finance, but it’s not all about money. Economics is a broad discipline that helps us understand historical trends, interpret today’s headlines, and make predictions about the coming years”. Then there is this rendition on Google, that: “Economics is the study of how goods and services are produced, distributed, and consumed, and how economic agents interact with each other. It's a social science that's concerned with the creation, consumption, and transfer of wealth”.

In none of these definitions is there explicit reference to interest groups or social classes or the sharing of the wealth produced in the economy. Even the rendition by the so-called ‘father of economics’, Adam Smith, a Scottish philosopher and economist, defined economics as "an inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations", clearly with gaze on the macro level of interest. To him, “Economics is the science of wealth”-no more, no less-meaning that economics aims at generating wealth both individually and for the nation as a whole, that is all. Incidentally and instructively, the most widely shared definition in contemporary times is the one offered by Lionel Robbins that sees economics as “the science which studies human behavior as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses”; emphasis on scarcity, no reference to sharing. Transcending the purely technical perception of economics to the more ennobling standard of moral imperatives, religion institutively rears its head for consideration.

Coming to religion, an online dictionary defines it, as: “the belief in and worship of a superhuman power or powers, especially a God or gods”. The definition provided by Wikipedia is more robust such that it facilitates the smooth linking of the two key concepts of our theme and therefore helpful to the discussion; the medium notes: “Religion is a range of social-cultural systems, including designated behaviours and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophesies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relate humanity to supernatural, transcendental, and spiritual elements—although there is no scholarly consensus over what precisely constitutes a religion.

Different religions may or may not contain various elements ranging from the divine, sacredness, faith, and a supernatural being or beings”. Relevantly, this definition highlights ‘morals, beliefs, world views’ which provide the conceptual framework for anchoring the linkage between economics and religion. Take the central one- morals, which is of direct affiliation with religion, also connected to economics contextually; but first, the religion connection.

Religion and Morality

From the August 22, 2024 piece, “Do you need religion to be a moral person?” authored by Harvey Whitehouse and shared on the Big Think platform, we are exposed to the logic of the following assertions: i) While some moral institutions, like deference to authority, may align with religious beliefs, the link between religion and morality is not inherent; ii) Scientific research suggests that morality is rooted in universal principles of cooperation, not necessarily tied to religious beliefs-this is without prejudice to the finding in a survey conducted in 2007 by the Pew Research Centre, that in answer to the question ‘Do you need to believe in God to be moral?’ the overwhelming majority of people outside Europe said yes; and iii) A study across 60 diverse societies found that seven cooperative principles, such as loyalty, reciprocity, and respect for property, are universally judged as morally good, with rare exceptions rooted in specific cultural contexts.

It was Sandi Toksvig who posed two challenging questions, namely: a) where does morality come from? –and b) why should I consider others? The thoughtful and honest answer offered is that these are ultimate moral questions, and like all ultimate questions, can be extremely difficult to answer. To the first question, the answer provided is that, when discussing what is right and wrong or making decisions, we often don’t worry about where our moral values came from; instead, we are more concerned with what they are and how to apply them in a given situation. This is where the real work of morality is manifested: in living life. However, if we take the trouble to consider where they came from, the tendency is to credit our upbringing or our education.

But where did the moral values of our parents and teachers, and their parents and teachers, come from? One answer to this is that moral values come from religions, transmitted through sacred texts and religious authorities. In this vein, some people worry that a general move away from religious faith will bring about some kind of moral breakdown in society; but, a humanist will argue that moral values are not dependent on religion, which is a highly contentious position especially given our increasingly secular society.

Concerning the second question on why we should consider others, to the author, the only possible answer is the humanist one – because we are naturally social beings; we live in communities; and life in any community, from the family outwards, is much happier, and fuller, and richer if the members are friendly and co-operative than if they are hostile and resentful. Whatever position we take on this interesting debate, it is obvious that once we associate enhanced human productivity with harmonious co-existence, it becomes easy to see how economics is unavoidably linked to morality.

Economics and Morality

On the platform of the Russel Kirk Center, while dealing with the subject, “The Moral Foundations of Economics”, sometime in 2007, the relationship between economics and morality was graphically displayed even as some people would like to separate the two. The truth, however, is the practical impossibility of the separation which can be seen in the fact that most men and women recognize the inevitability of some sort of moral principles as an economy cannot function without them except on a negligible scale.

In essence, moral beliefs, sometimes called moral values, make production, trading, saving, and the whole gamut of economic activities, possible. Put differently, all human productions and institutions have some connection with moral ideas and moral habits. An everyday mundane but very concrete example is the rearing of pigs for sale and or consumption-which is beyond consideration in a typical Muslim community-among whom pork is a forbidden meal. The bottom line of the argument here is that material prosperity depends upon moral convictions and moral dealings. Adam Smith, the acknowledged father of economic science, was a professor of moral philosophy-and he took it for granted that moral beliefs would affect economic behaviour. At the minimum, and as illustration, any economy that functions well relies upon a high degree of honesty. In this vein, we recall that many commercial contracts are oral, rather than written-registering the primacy of trust which primary foundation is presumed honesty.

This brings to mind the conclusion from Russell Kirk’s 1989 textbook, Economics: Work and Prosperity which is worth noting given its practical relevance to contemporary times of dubious-that is, dishonest, economic agents, acting in gross violation of the virtue of honesty; it reads: Those societies in which theft, cheating, and lying are common do not ordinarily develop successful economies. If production and distribution can be carried on only under armed protectors and without any certainty of being paid, then little will be produced and distributed above the level of subsistence. When bargains are not kept and loans are not repaid, prices are high and interest rates are higher—which discourages production and distribution. Another moral quality or habit important for the success of an economy is the custom of doing good work—of producing goods of high quality.

The modern economist of conscience, would be expectedly disturbed by the unfolding moral degeneration of economics discipline, pointedly captured by Hans J. Blommestein in the paper, “Why is Ethics Not Part of Modern Economics and Finance? A Historical Perspective”, published in Dans Finance & Bien Commun 2006/1 (No 24). In that paper, the author is seen lamenting over how, “once upon a time, moral considerations occupied a prominent place in economic studies.

However, later, ethics was considered not any longer a legitimate object of serious study in analytical economics. Instead, in today’s dominant analytical models in economics and finance, economic agents act in a morally neutral fashion. Ethics as such is not part of the core explanation of the efficiency and viability of (financial) markets”. In other words, the role of ethics in modern economics and finance has become insignificant, objectively peripheral. Indeed, it has taken no less a personality than John Maynard Keynes -one of the greatest three economists in history-the other two being Adam Smith and Karl Marx, to force this issue of moral degeneration of contemporary intellectual endeavour in economics discipline on to visibility and consideration, when he argued soberly but forcefully, in a prophetic mood, that: I see us free, therefore, to return to some of the most sure and certain principles of religion and traditional virtue – that avarice is a vice, that the exaction of usury is a misdemeanor, and the love of money is detestable, that those walk most truly in the paths of virtue and sane wisdom who take least thought for the morrow. We shall once more value ends above means and prefer the good to the useful. We shall honour those who teach us how to pluck the hour and the day virtuously and well, the delightful people who are capable of taking direct enjoyment in things, the lilies of the field who toil not, neither do they spin.

In this Keynesian vein, Arjo Klamer –of Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication, Erasmus University Rotterdam, had titled his 2016 paper, published in Schmollers Jahrbuch 136, unambiguously as “Economics Is a Moral Science”, arguing for the imperative of transforming economics discipline into a moral science., projecting with hope, that, “We economists would cease to be cynical about the intentions of individual agents and focus on doing the right thing.

We would abandon our instrumentalist orientation where means get all our attention and the ends virtually none, and focus on what makes people truly happy. In other words, economics would be the discipline concerned with the good life and the good society, just as it was before the economics of Lionel Robbins, Jan Tinbergen and Paul Samuelson”. In short, pleading for a return to the era before the triumph of neoclassical economic paradigm-with focus on so-called positive economics (what is) and derisive attention to normative economics (what should be). It’s pertinent at this juncture to recall the legendary EF Schumacher-author of the groundbreaking book, Small Is Beautiful published in 1963 who in response to a question, insisted, that: “Economics without ethics is a body without a soul, a well without water, a flower without fragrance”; adding, "In my opinion there is no distinction between spirituality and economics.

In the west we have separated spiritual values from economics, and as a result we lack happiness and contentment.” It is this model of Schumacher’s perspective that informed the crafting of the article by Satish Kumar, titled: “Economics without Ethics is wrong”, published by The Resurgent Trust on April 27, 2023. If, as we should, raise this verdict of economics being a moral discipline to apply to the economist especially in Africa and the Global South in general, the logical question becomes this: what should be the role of the intellectual in society?

The Role of Intellectuals in Society

Understandably, a lot has been written and publicly shared on the role of the intellectual in society. For example, on the Google page we find this interesting and inspiring entry, to the effect that: “Intellectuals are those who have diverse wisdom and foresight, who apply their intellect and forward-looking visions for the purpose of awakening society”. They are generators of ideas and stand a good chance in normal circumstances of exerting influence on public policy across diverse spheres of life. When they live by the expressed mandate, they objectively promote public good and can be seen as public intellectuals. Unfortunately, for personal and ideological reasons, we find intellectuals joining forces with the economic and political oppressors to perpetuate the sufferings of the masses through the rationalizing ideas they advance.

On the platform of Braincrave.com, we read about an elaborate and high-level lamentation that goes far beyond the focus of this piece, but nonetheless conveying subtle relevance, which is that, “Generally, the world is intellectually bankrupt, thinking that violence is always the answer to solve the world's problems. Intellectual dishonesty is everywhere. Although there are some intellectual leaders who promote a morality other than the initiation of force, theft, murder, dishonesty, tyranny, and comparable destruction, by and large, the political and economic leaders have descended into the morass of simply who to sacrifice next”. I seek the reader’s permission to highlight the role of an economist who fits squarely into the status of an anti-people intellectual; his name is Milton Friedman.

Case Study of a Morally Bankrupt Economist

Upfront, I confess my bias as I accuse late Professor Milton Friedman of crime on two distinct charges albeit at interrelated levels: one, at the basic philosophical level of ideological indifference to morality and two, at the level of a specific case of his role in Chile. Friedman wrote his seminal essay, "A Friedman Doctrine: The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits," published in The New York Times in 1970, arguing that the social responsibility of business is (solely) to increase its profits, and contending therefore that businesses bear no moral obligation to society or the public at large. Coming to Chile as our case study, we must remember the role of a group of Chilean economists, known as the “Chicago Boys,”-led by same Milton Friedman- who wanted free markets.

As a backdrop, we recall the 1972 address by Salvador Allende, then President of Chile, a country where Copper was central to the economy as oil and gas is central to that of Nigeria, in which he made the following instructive point: Apart from the importance of the economic sphere… there is also an important political consideration. With the step that we are going to take, we will break with our dependency, our economic dependency. That means political independence. We will be the owners of our own future, the true sovereigns of our own destiny. What is done with our copper will depend on us, on our capacity, on our effort, and on our sacrificial dedication to ensure that copper in Chile is produced for the progress of our country. The people will have to understand – and they do understand – that this is a great national challenge, and that it is not only the mine workers that have to respond to this, but the Chilean people as a whole.

As rightly recalled by the editors of Tricontinental, in their September 5, 2023 edition, in the report titled “The Coup against the Third World: Chile, 1973”: Allende’s statement at the third session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), held in Santiago de Chile in 1972, is of particular interest. At this conference, President Allende outlined the position of his government and the objectives of its international economic relations policy from a revolutionary perspective that retains its relevance today. In Allende’s words, this position sought ‘to replace an obsolete and radically unjust economic and trade order with an equitable one that is based on a new concept of man and human dignity and to reformulate an international division of labour that is intolerable for the less advanced countries and that obstructs their progress while favouring only the affluent nations’.

The publishers also correctly observed that “this means that the programmatic, political, and ideological issues cited by Allende remain valid and necessary in all societies suffering from the consequences of imperialism”. The report went further to recall how:

On 11 September 1973, reactionary sections of the Chilean army, led by General Augusto Pinochet, left the barracks and overthrew the democratically elected government of President Salvador Allende and the Popular Unity coalition. In the melee around the attack on the presidential palace known as La Moneda, Allende died. The military and other security forces began an assault on the organised sectors of society, making mass arrests and setting in place a regime of repression, which included permanent centres of torture and assassination.

It is pertinent to remind the reader that The Popular Unity government, led by Salvador Allende as President expected to use the increased revenues from copper exports to fund its programme to transform life in Chile. And so it did, instituting healthcare, educational, and agrarian reforms, constructing homes for the working class and peasantry, and implementing a programme that delivered half a litre of free milk per day to children.

By 1973, 3.6 million children received milk through this scheme, dramatically reducing malnutrition rates among children, which, before Popular Unity took office, hovered around twenty percent. The import of this historical recall is that, following the unpopular CIA-sponsored military coup against Allende in September 1973, Milton Friedman and the Chicago Boys whom he backed to the hilt, supported the power usurpers around General Augustus Pinochet to unleash a barrage of anti-people economic policies on Chile. Milton Friedman –a Noble laureate in economics-died in 2006, occasioning a barrage of conflicting sentiments, one strand represented by the following from John Kozy in his “Milton Friedman in Memoriam”: Milty was an enigma. Supremely intelligent and completely dishonest intellectually. He advocated economic freedom for the few at the expense of many. He lived in a democracy but really preferred tyranny and an established aristocracy of the wealthy.

What he and his colleagues at the University of Chicago did to the people of Chile and countless other multitudes really cannot and should never be forgiven. He helped create an economic holocaust that consigned whole peoples to economic concentration camps, many of which still exist. He was an exploiter of humanity, a thoroughly evil person.

Yet to uncritical economists, he is somewhat of a saint. Heilbroner was right when he called economics the dismal science. If Milton now rests in peace, cosmic justice has gone awry. Of course, only a glimpse of the Friedman essence can be got from his own statement that serves as justification for this representative anger against the man whose core argument was predicated on his strong neoliberal belief and argument that that governments should limit themselves to three functions, namely: military defense of the nation, enforce contracts between individuals, and protect citizens from crimes against themselves or their property.

He was an extremist in defense of an unregulated market, not caring one bit about how its blind forces may turn out, as they often do, undermine human welfare through intolerable in equality and social misery especially in the context of third world economies epitomized by Chile where Milton Friedman-inspired economic policies turned the vast majority of the citizens into victims. Kozy had actually prefaced this obituary with the more definite tone of disapproval with the following words: Well, the world of free-market economists has lost its Uncle Milty.

When I heard the news, I was reminded of one of Mark Twain's quips that went something like this: When a person he was not very fond of died, he sent the following note to the widow: I regret not having been able to attend the funeral, but I want you to know I highly approved of the event. I need not add anything to these lines except perhaps, as evidence of my own endorsement, to say that Prof Milton Friedman should have died much earlier.

I come in peace, please.

ADEREMI MEDUPIN

In the days of gender activism in Nigeria

The closing two decades of the 20^th Century Nigeria witnessed a visible, vibrant association of women with a few men as diehard supporters in their midst-known as Women in Nigeria (WIN) and present in most Nigerian university campuses well known for their radical political orientation-mainly but not limited to those in Zaria, Ilorin, Kano, Ibadan, Calabar, Lagos ete, etc.

Erwin Rommel Memorial, place of his suicide with a cyanide pill, Herrlingen (2019) Courtesy - Wikipedia 

A significant difference between risk factors and suicide methods was highlighted. Persons with financial constraints chose to hang themselves while those with marital conflict preferred to poison themselves compared with other methods

ADEREMI MEDUPIN

Why the Subject of Suicide?

When I read in an online post of September 26, 2024 on the Associated Press page, that: “Preliminary data shows that a little over 49,300 suicide deaths were reported in 2023” and that “over 49,000 people died by suicide in 2022”, all in the United States of America, translating into one suicide every 1 hour and 40 minutes, which means that every day, approximately 14 young people between the ages of 15-24 die at their own hands, I was shocked and pushed to learn more about the sobering statistic. One literature I accessed almost immediately was a piece written way back in 2003 by Dave E. Marcotte, titled: “The Economics of Suicide, Revisited”, published in the Southern Economic Journal Volume 68, Issue Number 3. So, Economists have actually paid attention to this sobering subject for that long, I wondered aloud.

Coincidentally, not long ago, there was a shared photo via WhatsApp of a young man, looking well-dressed but who hanged himself somewhere in the outskirts of the Nigerian Federal Capital Territory. What could have pushed the man to that irreversible act of destroying what is considered the most precious asset to every human being? In this context, therefore, a Google entry made on April 28, 2023 which states that, “a person's most valuable asset in life is mindset” -appears to have skipped a critical step and therefore wrong. This is because it omits the fact that life precedes mindset. Indeed, we can be talking of a mindset only if there’s a mind and there can be no active mind outside of an existing life. Dear reader- am I communicating?

We value human life in a way that assumes we possess a sacred something not found in beings like lambs, dogs, or mosquitoes. As captured on the Big Think platform, “the sanctity of life is the idea that human lives are inherently valuable – more valuable than any other material thing there is”. If we approach suicide from the other angle, we are confronted by the question: What is wrong in killing people? The nuanced answer provided on the same Big Think platform is that: “Nearly all of us seem to have an unquestioned assumption that every person should continue to live; that to kill another human being is a wrong beyond no others.

We unthinkingly accept that there’s something about human beings that we ought to protect and, if at all possible, avoid harming. We value human life in a way that suggests we have a magic and a sacred something that lambs, turkeys, or mosquitos do not possess”. Take this along with instances of people killing others and committing suicide thereafter.

Tessa Lynn- a therapist and author, posed two interesting and interrelated questions on the popular Quora Digest platform, on June 30, 2024- namely: (i) What is the purpose of human life? and (ii) Why do we see so much suffering in various forms of life? The following informed answer to the first question is evidently insightful and possibly provocative, which is that, “from a spiritual perspective, the purpose of human life is for each person to realize their full potential with the guidance of their in-dwelling spirit, which will also provide opportunities for the growth of the spirit”.

As to observable human suffering around us, Lynn’s position is that, much of it “is due to the effects of cultural and societal norms or those of governmental policies, the responsibility for which lies with the individuals, groups, and institutions involved and their determination, or lack of it, to act for the greater good”. In essence, therefore, human suffering is mostly inflicted by humans on other humans, which is the responsibility of the one who is inflicting it but is also influenced by genetics, personality, mental health, and the environment. A big question is: can we quantify human life in monetary terms?

Questioning the Appropriateness of Attaching Monetary Value to Human Life

Whereas, solely on the unique nature of the individual human life the argument can easily be made that it is supremely precious, so, can its value be expressed in monetary terms as implied in the cost-benefit paradigm and practice by economists? Some people find the very idea of assigning a monetary value to life as meaningless and ethically wrong. Human life, it is argued, is not a commodity that can be traded against other goods; it should therefore not carry a price tag. In other words, ethical questions arise.

As well known, a cost-benefit analysis is a process invoked by project evaluators in determining the economic benefit of a decision, so they can decide whether it's worth pursuing. In this methodological framework, both the costs and the benefits are measured in monetary terms, as for example in the case of projects for healthcare improvement: what is the value of the loss compared to the health gain? In the summary provided by Wikipedia, the motivation for placing a monetary value on life is to enable policy and regulatory analysts to allocate the limited supply of resources, infrastructure, labour, and tax revenue-explaining, that:

The value of life is an economic value used to quantify the benefit of avoiding a fatality. It is also referred to as the cost of life, value of preventing a fatality (VPF), implied cost of averting a fatality (ICAF), and value of a statistical life (VSL). In social and political sciences, it is the marginal cost of death prevention in a certain class of circumstances.

In many studies the value also includes the quality of life, the expected life time remaining, as well as the earning potential of a given person especially for an after-the-fact payment in a wrongful death claim lawsuit. As such, it is a statistical term, the value of reducing the average number of deaths by one. It is an important issue in a wide range of disciplines including economics, health care, adoption, political economy, insurance, worker safety, environmental impact assessment, globalization, and process safety.

The footnote to the above explanation by Wikipedia is interesting as it reveals the serious practical limitations of placing monetary value on human life. Hear the medium:

There is no standard concept for the value of a specific human life in economics. However, when looking at risk/reward trade-offs that people make with regard to their health, economists often consider the value of a statistical life (VSL). The VSL is very different from the value of an actual life. It is the value placed on changes in the likelihood of death, not the price someone would pay to avoid certain death.

In the specific case of insurance where the practice of life value quantification is the basic order of procedure, Human Life Value (HLV) as a quantitative measure is used to assess the economic value of an individual's life based on factors such as age, gender, occupation, income, and other relevant variables.

This is commonly employed in the industry to determine the amount of life insurance coverage a person should sign up to. The procedure follows the following principle: Your Human Life Value is a number unique to you, calculated roughly as your income multiplied by your years to retirement (using the typical age of 65). Generally, the rule of thumb for calculating human life value, according to life insurance companies, is multiplying income by 15 to 30, or insuring up to a client's net worth.

However, all these calculations and the enumerated measures aimed at lightening the burden of coping with the existential challenges of life and thus making the future to look promising, notwithstanding, across the globe, human beings commit suicide.

Global Incidence of Suicide

Suicide has been so wide in its occurrence that the World Health Organisation (WHO) calls it a “serious public health problem”.

According to reports, globally, more than 720 000 people die due to suicide every year. In ranking, suicide is the third leading cause of death among 15–29-year-olds; the rate is calculated per 100,000 population. Take Europe: in the UK, this figure stands at 10.7, while Cyprus is 3.5, Greece- 4, Italy -5.6 and Slovakia- 6.9, being among the lowest rates. With 11,558 deaths per 100,000 of the population and 200,000 suicide attempts in 2019, France is among the European countries with the highest rates. Of course, suicide does not just occur in high-income countries, rather, it is a global phenomenon, occurring in all regions of the world. In fact, close to three quarters (73%) of global suicides occurred in low- and middle-income countries in 2021.

Incidentally, across the globe, nowhere is it more serious than in Lesotho, with 87.5 suicides per 100,000 people. In his September 8, 2023 report on:”10 African countries with the highest suicide rate in 2023”, published in Business Insider Africa, Chinedu Okafor notes how, across Africa, while the continent often grapples with pressing issues such as poverty, infectious diseases, and political instability, the issue of suicide remains largely hidden from the public eye.

Accurate statistics on suicide in Africa are challenging to obtain due to underreporting, stigma, and limited data collection resources. However, the available data suggests that the suicide rate is on the rise in several African countries. Hardly surprising, the suicide rate varies across the continent, with some regions and countries experiencing higher rates than others. Based on the Report’s list, Southern Africa records the highest rates of suicides on the continent, as the accompanying Table amply shows. 

10 African countries with the highest suicide rate.

Rank Country Suicide mortality rate

(per 100 000 population)

1. Lesotho 72.4

2. Eswatini 29.4

3. South Africa 23.5

4. Botswana 16.1

5. Zimbabwe 14.1

6. Mozambique 13.6

7. Cabo Verde 12.9

8. Central Africa Republic 12.3

9. Eritrea 10.9

10. Namibia 9.7

 Source: Chinedu Okafor (2023), Business Insider Africa- September

In Nigeria, the age-standardized suicide rate was 6.9 per 100,000 population in 2019, across both sexes, however, male suicide rates were higher at 10.1 per 100,000 population. In the same year, Lesotho’s suicide rate stood at 87.5 per 100,000 population. As recalled on the website of Nigeria Health Watch on September 14, 2023 by Kenneth Ibe and Samuel Gada in their lead write up, titled: “World Suicide Prevention Day 2023: Creating Hope Through Action”:

In a video that went viral on social media recently, a Lagos socialite known as Mrs Salome [not her real name] parked her SUV on the ever-busy Third Mainland Bridge in Lagos State and made an apparent attempt to jump into the lagoon. Fortunately, swift intervention from passers-by prevented her attempted suicide. However, not everyone is so fortunate. This was the case for Chukwuemeka Akachi, a fourth-year student at the University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN), who took his own life in 2019, leaving behind a suicide note on his Facebook wall

One crucial point to highlight here is the obvious fact of divergence between attempted suicides and completed suicides; the figure for the former logically greater than the latter. In other words, for every suicide there are many more people who attempt suicide. Wikipedia has a comic rendition on this relationship when it notes that: A suicide attempt is an act in which an individual tries to kill themselves but survives. Mental health professionals discourage describing suicide attempts as “failed” or “unsuccessful”, as doing so may imply that a suicide resulting in death is a successful or desirable outcome.

The logical question is: why do people commit suicide?

Typical Causes of Suicide

The reasons behind suicide are complicated. From sources across the web, the principal causes of suicide have been identified and as detailed in Wikipedia are the following:

√ Mental illness or psychiatric disability, which is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning

√ Drug or alcohol abuse: this can worsen thoughts of suicide and make you feel reckless or impulsive enough to act on your thoughts

√ Family history of suicide: Family violence, including physical, sexual, or verbal or emotional abuse.

√ Chronic pain: or chronic pain syndrome is a type of pain that is also known by other titles such as gradual burning pain, electrical pain, throbbing pain, and nauseating pain. A person who dies by suicide is often so consumed by pain that he can no longer think of anything but ending that pain.

√ Depression: Major depressive disorder, also known as clinical depression, is a mental disorder characterized by at least two weeks of pervasive low mood, low self-esteem, and loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities.

Exposure to violence:

Thus, according to WHO, the reasons for suicide are multi-faceted, influenced by social, cultural, biological, psychological, and environmental factors present across the life-course. A publication by Russel Group titled, “Increases in suicide rate linked to ‘shocks’ in the economy” shared on March 11, 2024 shows a link between unexpected economic performance and a rise in the suicide rate. Researchers have found a strong connection between daily suicides, people’s expectations formed by professional economic forecasts and the subsequent outcome of actual economic performance. A negative ‘shock’ that emerges from the potential mismatch between reality and predictions can prompt an overwhelming sense of lack of identity and purpose of life among vulnerable sections of the population – sadly leading some to take their own lives.

The causal factors identified are connected to social stressors associated with suicide, namely: loneliness, rejection, and marital conflicts especially in developed countries, whereas inter-generational conflicts, love failure, and exam failure are found more in developing countries. As to the means of committing suicide, the most common is overdose-typically of poisonous items in form of medicines, drugs or alcohol, cleaning agents, insecticides, and garden chemicals; others are firearms-especially in the USA-where they are the most common means, accounting for over fifty percent of the total in 2020. This differs slightly from the European scene where hanging, poisoning by drugs, and jumping from a high place by far outstrip suicide by firearms.

In the case of Africa, hanging, pesticide poisoning, ingestion of toxic substances, and drowning, are the leading means with firearms trailing far behind them. There must be lessons to learn from this human pervasion and dictated public policy and private principle reactions.

Suicide Lessons and Reduction Policies

At the macro level of correlational analysis of low income countries, it has been found that, “for every $1000 increase in GDP per capita suicide rates are reduced by almost 30%, whereas in lower-middle and upper-middle countries suicide rates are reduced by 5%”. Across board, “the relationship of suicide rates with GDP suggests that suicide rates drop in times of economic expansion and increases in times of recession” Cascaded down to the micro level, there’s the general consensus among neoclassical economists whose language of rendition is typically, “that suicide occurs when the discounted stream of expected utility over a person’s lifetime is low, perhaps negative”.

Within this framework, suicide rates are expected to rise as lifetime income falls. What is beyond dispute is the fact that job loss and unemployment,, financial strain, eviction from rented apartment due to inability to pay due rent elevate suicide risks among affected individuals. This brings home the rude realization that life is tenuous for us all. Facing death with grace is the fulfillment of life, regardless of what you believe will follow. One thing is evident: We don’t appreciate what we have until it is gone.

At the strictly personal level, it is critical to reach out to others whenever you have suicidal thoughts- you may be at the very end of your tethers that you cannot pull out of by yourself. While it can be very difficult to “spot” someone in this state of mind, we all need to be alert to the warning signs. Specific measures have been recommended for preventing the occurrence of the suicide phenomenon, among them those from the WHO that include the following: i) limit access to the means of suicide (e.g. pesticides, firearms, certain medications); ii) interact with the media for responsible reporting of suicide; iii) foster socio-emotional life skills in adolescents; and iv) early identify, assess, manage and follow up anyone who is affected by suicidal behaviours.

Clearly beyond the focus of our theme, are two main moral issues regarding suicide: first, whether suicide is morally permissible, and if so, in what circumstances; and second, whether a person who knows that someone is contemplating or attempting suicide has an obligation to intervene and if so, how strong that obligation is. Persons with close contact to victims of suicide have some suggestions, such as these from someone whose brother committed suicide: While it can be very difficult to “spot” someone in this state of mind, we all need to be alert to the warning signs; and individual therapy and group therapy in any form is essential for helping survivors to deal with this grief.

All the above underscore the fact that we have the choice of making every minute count with the people we love. Inherent to our existence is that we learn, adapt, and grow. Health, happiness, and longevity are the payoffs for this. I come in peace, please.

When political leaders identify a global challenge such as the eradication of poverty or hunger and promise hope, they also signal that they are in the market for ideas and programs that will go some way to fulfilling that hope. The suppliers of models of hope signal back with their messages of hope.